Paradigm Shift
by Thegunner18
Summary: In City 17, CP Officer Ethan Holt's one aim is survival, but with two arch-enemies on the verge of colliding in all-out war, and friendships on both sides, survival may not be as clear-cut of a decision as it once seemed. Demonized as heartless pawns of the Combine, this is a deeper look into the more human side of Civil Protection.
1. Chapter 1

**Half-Life: Paradigm Shift**

**Chapter 1**

Silence. A rare phenomenon in City 17, a place littered with the constant flicker and flash of security cameras, and perpetual humming of city scanners as they hover dauntingly overhead. The entire city had been left to decay and deteriorate or be taken over by the alien, invasive and militaristic architecture of the Combine. For many, though, it was the sound of hope that was most disturbing. Or rather, the lack thereof. People had given up. They were the last generation of humans, at least with the Combine's suppression field up. Yet people still carried on with their lives, despite the oppression.

A young man took to his seat by his desk, one side of it cluttered with a myriad of official documentation, the other side being the place of his personal belongings; it was a far more modest sight, but neat and well-kept.

He knew he was part of that oppression, but he couldn't do anything about it. This was his job. He had to do it.

Pulling a notebook out from his personal belongings, he turned to the first page, putting pen to paper. He left it there for a few moments, ink seeping into the page then he wrote.

_26__th __August_

_'It's my shift in about an hour. Got nothing better to do until then, so I thought I'd do this. Something to vent my feelings or whatever it is. Never been much of a writer before, so I guess this will probably be a trainwreck. Not that I really got much of a chance to try my hand at writing. I was so young that I barely remember anything from before the start of that bloody war. A couple of birthdays maybe. Cake, candles, friends. Don't know what happened to those friends. Probably dead, or worse. It used to be hard to imagine anything worse than being dead, but I found it, and I've doomed people to that fate._

_People might look at me and hate my fucking guts but in the end, I'm still alive. I've done what was necessary to survive this hellhole, and I'll do it again. We're humans behind our masks, too. We want to survive just as much as everyone else. Some CPs take their power over the other citizens too far,yes, but that's just how life is now. At least we're still here to tell the tale, even if it is a grim one._

_Two decades after the war...I'm sure it'll be an unpopular opinion, but Dr. Breen gave humanity another chance. A lot of people would say that they'd rather have been wiped out than be under Combine control. You know what they say, though: hindsight is 20/20. At the time we were desperate to survive and Dr. Breen saved us. I think he had humanity's best interests at heart, but I can hardly remember the first few years of the Combine's dominion. I was only a young kid at the time. Seven or eight? I don't know. Doesn't really matter now. Didn't realise that I'd be the last generation of humanity, though. __Maybe...maybe the Combine's trans-human ideals aren't the worst thing. Memory replacement is pretty extreme, but there's not much worth remembering in this world anyway._

_Here's humanity anyway. Surviving. Here I am, in City 17. Surviving. Not sure where I'll be stationed today, but rumour has it that we've located a part of the Resistance's intelligence network. Hopefully most of the Resistance catch wind of this before we arrive and most of them get out; I could do without sending people off to Nova Prospekt for once. It's no secret what happens to them there, but it's my job. I understand why the rebels are fighting, I sympathise with them, but__ it'll be hard for them to even make a dent in the Combine. I mean, Earth's entire military got torn to pieces in seven hours. For now, I'm just doing what I'm paid to do, and I'll shoot back at anything that shoots at me. I'm still alive. I want to keep it that way. Whatever happens to-'_

There was a sudden rap of gloved knuckles on the steel door.

"Ethan! You there?"

The young CP officer slammed his notebook shut, the muffled thump of paper on paper drowned out by the clanging door, shoving it underneath some important, loose CP paperwork and firmly out of sight of prying eyes. He hastily stuck the pen on top of the book, forgetting to put the pen lid back on.

"Ethan!" The voice called out from behind the door once again, this time knocking louder.

"Y-Yeah, one sec, one sec." Ethan hesitated slightly, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he pushed himself out of his chair and stepped over to the door. It was an hour before his shift, why was anyone even bothering him? Heart still pounding, he swung open the door, smiling lightly. His expression softened at the sight before him: another CP officer, mask under his arm. The tag on his uniform read _'Officer McGregor'_. The man stood just over 6 feet tall with short, brown hair, almost a buzz cut. His facial features were sharp, strong, and well-defined. He also had a slight, but nevertheless noticeable, tan to him. The product of one too many holidays in Spain on a pale-skinned Scotsman. It was still something he was proud of to this day. Being from England, Ethan understood that pride. Now that he was here in City 17, somewhere in Eastern Europe, it was going to be impossible to tan, especially under the CP armour.

"Matt, what are you doing here? We have plenty of time before check-in for our shift." He asked in a friendly, somewhat curious tone, pushing some hair out of his eye with his fingers. Of course, he recognised the voice; he'd known Matt since before they joined Civil Protection, but the reaction to him knocking was just because he was on edge. If any of the higher echelons caught him sympathising with the rebels, it'd be _him _going to Nova Prospekt.

"Aye, but I got told to come and fetch you by Captain Taryn. He wants to speak to ya." Matt gave a light shrug of his shoulder and raised his eyebrows. Ethan's heart dropped again, and he was thinking once more about all the worst case scenarios. His eyes fell to the dull, metal floor of the corridor for a brief second before flitting back up to his friend.

"You...didn't get told anything about what this is?" Ethan asked in a low tone of voice. He knew it was a hopeful question, and he got the answer he expected.

"Nope." Matt remained quiet for a moment, sensing the apprehension in the air before leaning forward and placing a reassuring hand on Ethan's shoulder. "Come on, mate, why would they be pissed at you? The number of damn rebels that you've sent to Nova Prospekt, I'm surprised that they haven't needed a bloody expansion to that place." He chuckled heartily.

There was a sudden widening of Ethan's eyes and a dilating of pupils. It was only for a split second, but he hoped that Matt hadn't noticed his discomfort, and it was quickly replaced with a smile and a nod of the head. He'd never known Matt to be the type of guy to pick up on those subtle things anyway. The thought lingered in his head, of being the one responsible for so much suffering. Death, he could deal with. He'd seen so much of it that he was pretty much desensitized. But Nova Prospekt was something much worse than death. Honestly, he couldn't remember a damn thing about a lot of those people he sentenced to hell. It was probably best to distance himself from that.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Ethan replied softly, glancing over his shoulder back at his desk as he pushed thoughts of Nova Prospekt out of his mind . He'd tried to keep it tidy, but whenever he did tidy it, it only got even worse over the following week. An untidy desk was also a good hiding place for notebook, and he couldn't see it from here, which was always nice. The room itself was quite small, but it was an en-suite, and actually rather stylish now that he came to think of it. Whoever the Combine had hired for interior design certainly had his approval. Compared to how normal citizens had to live, this was heaven. The perks of the job were definitely nice.

"Hey, when have I ever been wrong?" The older man smirked jokingly and leaned back onto the wall opposite to the door, crossing his arms. Ethan just shook his head, smiling, and grabbed his mask from atop his desk before stepping outside and locking the door with his ID.

"Eh, probably that time that you almost got on the train to City 7 rather than City 17. The look on your face when I pulled you off that train was un-for-_gettable!_" This time it was Ethan's turn to chuckle as he started to make his way down the corridor. If there was one thing that he could call Matt, it was stubborn. Ethan wasn't sure if he would have survived this world as a kid if it wasn't for Matt and his stubbornness. The guy was basically his mentor.

"Oi! You cannae blame me for something that was poorly signed!" Matt retorted in his relatively thick, Scottish accent, muttering something incomprehensible under his breath. "Anyway, I'll see ya down at briefing! I've been hearing about something pretty big."

Well, he wouldn't be seen if he'd been reprimanded by Overwatch for something...

Ethan turned back to Matt and threw out a casual, two-fingered salute. "Will do, mate." He then watched his friend disappear around the corner, carrying on with his own journey a second later.

He hoped that it was only coincidence them calling to see him and him starting that diary thing. Honestly, he wasn't entirely sure why he _had_ started that. It was just some kinda thing to pass the time, really. And it was liberating, in a sense.

Before he knew it, Ethan was standing outside Captain Taryn's office. Saying that it was intimidating certainly did not do it justice. He couldn't imagine anyone willingly wanting to be here. On either side of the door were two busts of roaring lions tucked into large indentations, staring endlessly out into the corridor, almost as if they were keeping guard and daring anyone to even enter. The eerie silence made the situation no better, and the Combine logo was emblazoned almost everywhere he looked. He was used to that now, but this felt different. Steeling himself, Ethan walked inside and took a few steps forward before coming to a stop, both hands behind his back with said back straight as possible.

He couldn't help but notice the large banner hanging above the Captain's large desk which was decorated in a minimalistic blue, white and black colour scheme. It read: _'Sapientia intra immortalitas.' _Something to do with immortality. Not surprising. That did seem to be the Combine's ultimate goal. He couldn't imagine that it was something the Combine would have bothered with originally, so it was probably commissioned by the Captain herself. It sure did help to give the place a feeling of authority and formality. Ethan honestly sympathised with the whole trans-human thing, but...memory wipes definitely _weren't _his thing. That was why he had no intentions of ever rising up in rank past the CP unit. He might as well be dead without memory or free will. And survival was his priority.

"Officer Holt."

Ethan snapped to attention once again, blocking out any other possible distractions, focusing entirely on what was in front of him. Captain Taryn had swung around on her chair and was now leaning forward with her elbows on the desk. Her jet black hair was military-grade short which worked to highlight the upper-left part of her face especially. She had willingly volunteered for augmentations from the Combine a few years ago, and that seemed to include replacing a part of her face, including an eye, with robotics and synthetic components. No matter how many times he saw it, It was unnerving, and she made no attempts to hide that part of her. Taryn smiled at him, but Ethan didn't know what that meant now, and he didn't try to interpret it in any way. Her glowing blue synthetic eye seemed to bore into him, looking for any sign of weakness.

"You're nervous. Don't be." She finally broke the silence that had been lingering for a few seconds, but what felt like hours. Her voice was tough and very much no-nonsense. The captain inhaled deeply through her nostrils and then exhaled, typing into her terminal until a blue holographic screen popped up in front of her. "Now, I know you have a briefing soon, so I'll make this quick." Taryn remarked, now leaning back on her chair. Ethan swallowed what felt to him like boulder. "Your commanders have been in contact with me recently..." She trailed off, pressing a few more keys on her terminal. This time the rotating image of a uniform came up. Ethan noted it to be the Combine soldier's uniform which was...odd. He was Civil Protection after all. "They recommended you to me for a promotion based on your aptitude in the field."

Ethan took in a short, sharp intake of breath. A wave a relief flooded over him, but then he noticed the soldier uniform again. That wasn't the next rank up from his.

"I have no reason to doubt them-" Taryn proceeded, giving Ethan that casual yet eerie smile of hers again. "-so your physical and mental augmentations including memory enhancements at Nova Prospekt are planned to begin in one week. Until then, your duties as a Civil Protection officer remain. I'm sure your skills will be appreciated by the City 17 trans-human force. Congratulations, Officer Holt. Dismissed."


	2. Chapter 2

**Paradigm Shift**

**Chapter 2**

It was fair to say that he'd been on his fair share of operations since donning the CP uniform and submitting to the command of the Combine: raids, riot control – those really didn't last very long, and there hadn't been any riots now for years – and manhunts. This one felt different to Ethan, though. Partly because it was at night and partly because the commanding officer of the unit was coming along for the ride, too. He almost couldn't remember the last time he'd fought alongside him. Granted, most of his work was simple house raids and guard duty which didn't need any of the commanders there. Even so, it didn't feel right and it was more than enough to make him nervous. Not to mention the fact that he'd been one of the people who had 'recommended' Ethan. He still hadn't worked out what to think of it, hadn't had the chance to tell anyone. He knew the implications of becoming a soldier. Nova Prospekt was one of those…implications.

The APC jolted lightly as it passed over a bump and turned a corner, the soft hum of its engine being the only thing penetrating the disciplined silence within the confines of its metal walls. The silence was an alien feeling to him. Usually his unit were firing quips and banter at each other. Tonight was different. Ethan turned his head slightly, glancing down the length of the troop carrier with a strong hand gripping a bar above his head to stabilise himself. His other hand rested warily on top of a loaded SMG, subconsciously caressing the uneven surface of the cold metal with his thumb. His eyes locked onto the expressionless visages of a number of his fellow CPs, although no one else would have known other than him. The masks they each wore hid any semblance of a human residing beneath it, adding to the intimidation factor. And people were definitely intimidated by Civil Protection, to put it lightly.

There were ten people in total sitting in the APC, plus the commander standing up by the front where the door would open, gazing down the middle with the stoic look of a statue. Matt was sat next to him, back straight and staring forward. There was no messing around with him. He'd been around the block when it came to military. British Royal Engineers, Royal Marines and now Civil Protection. The man knew how to conduct himself, and had been the immovable object standing up against the unstoppable force in Ethan's life.

They'd been told during briefing that even ten armed CP officers was probably overkill for this, since they'd be taking the rebels by surprise at night, but their aim wasn't to go into a fair fight. It was to go into a fight which gave the enemy no chance of winning. They had also been told that mobilising anything more than Civil Protection would draw too much attention and give the rebels too much of a heads up. Ethan took a deep breath and closed his eyes, but was quickly snapped back into focus when a radio crackled with the sound of a robotic female voice.

"_Unit_ _Delta-9 you are one minute from target location. Maintain radio-silence upon arrival according to mission parameters."_

Without so much as a single movement, the commander responded with machine-like efficiency.

"Copy, Dispatch. We are combat-ready. Radio silence now engaged." The tall, uniformed man answered, his voice altered via the mask's in-built vocalizer. Each CP officer had the same vocalizer, so everyone sounded almost exactly the same with the mask on. He took an SMG from one of the holders next to the door, and there was silence for a couple of moments before he addressed us. "Hand signals only before shots have been fired. Do not use radio until after we have engaged targets." There was a silent acceptance. "The main objective is to retrieve the data. Collateral damage is not an issue."

'_Collateral damage is not an issue.'_

Ethan replayed the phrase inside his head again.

'_Collateral damage is not an issue.'_

It continued to echo for a couple of seconds more before fading out, his doubts being extinguished into non-existence by an unknown force. Ethan didn't blink.

'_Retrieve the data.'_

Movement suddenly stopped with the APC shuddering to a halt. The unit flooded out of the open hatch and Ethan swiftly followed suit, both hands gripped firmly around the SMG, ready to raise and fire at a moment's notice. He briefly scanned his surroundings for threats. Nothing. The light of the full moon had bathed everything in a soft glow, large abandoned warehouses looming over him like mountains as his squad made its way through the claustrophobic pathways in between the eerily empty metal buildings. A minute later and they emerged from one of the small alleyways, coming out onto a wooden jetty raised on stilts. Light shimmered off the surface of some shallow water just a couple of metres away and over on the opposite side of land to them lay the re-purposed train tracks to Nova Prospekt. They were in the old canals. It was a shadow of its former self, much like everything else in City 17. Rusted boats and old cargo containers were just some of the myriad of objects left in the remnants of the canal that he could make out through the moonlit darkness. The Combine had drained much of the world's water, leaving places like this in a state of disrepair and disregard, but they made for a perfect rebel hideout, apparently.

The commander led them further down the canals, now on the path running alongside it at water level until eventually arriving at a rather innocuous metal door fixed into the side of a stone wall below one of the warehouses on the level above them. There was nothing around to suggest any kind of occupation by anyone, Ethan noted, but this was where the location they'd been tipped off about, and the data inside here would give the location of the rebel headquarters. If it wasn't a trap. His heart was racing. Were they really that silent that nobody had spotted them? It felt odd to him that there would be no one on lookout if this place knew where the rebel HQ was. It just wasn't adding up.

The young CP officer did his best to clear his mind as he stacked against the wall with the rest of his unit, five on each side of the door. He was positioned at the end of one of the stacks, covering any attacks from the rear, so the brunt of any retaliation from the rebels would be absorbed by the first few people moving in. There were a few beeps to mark the breaching explosives being set on the edges of the door, and a silent tap on the shoulder from the officer in front of him to indicate imminent entry.

"Radio silence lifted, initiating breach." The voice was cold, calm and calculated, a stark contrast to the chaos of the next few seconds. Debris showered out from the sharp, high-pitched bang of the explosive going off, and they were suddenly thrust into the midst of the unknown. Gunshots rang out from the other side of the door. Controlled bursts. They had targets. Ethan ducked in through the lingering cloud of smoke and was immediately barraged with new information on his surroundings. Incomprehensible shouts and screams penetrated the air like arrows before being drowned out by the deafening cracks of SMGs echoing around the room. He noticed one person from a distance about to round a corner out of sight, but he was quick to react, downing the figure with a burst of bullets.

'_Collateral damage is not an issue.'_

His gaze shifted elsewhere, and he advanced with the rest of his unit through a workshop of sorts, now devoid of any life other than them. Tools and mechanical parts lay strewn about the place, bullet holes peppering walls, tables and the floor wherever they hadn't connected with their true targets. A door on the far side of the room was ajar, seeming to lead into another similar workshop. Where was the resistance? The rebels were falling like flies. Ethan hadn't seen anyone other than his unit who were armed. He was expecting to catch them by surprise, but he was also expecting retaliation.

"Secure the area. Find a computer access point and exterminate any obstructions. We need that data."

He and the rest of the unit silently obliged. The majority moved up to the door on the far side of the room, boots clanging against the metal floor, whereas Ethan and the remaining few secured the few corridors branching off either side of the room. Looking down each of them, Ethan could see that they led to nowhere in particular and just had a few smaller rooms on each side of the corridor. Someone else. He was quick to note the small smears of blood on the floor and wall just by his feet, but no body to accompany it. The area was dimly lit, so he couldn't see any shimmering, but dragging the tip of his boot through a section of it concluded that it was definitely a recent addition. A strange combination of relief and fear flowed through him, and he honestly wasn't entirely sure what to feel. He'd shot this person, after all. There was still a chance of them being alive, but if they were still alive then there was no reason not to believe that they hadn't called for help somehow. One thing he could be sure of was that the cleaners weren't going to be happy.

Raising his weapon once more, he followed the trail, treading lightly, though the occasional radio chatter from his squad was a dead giveaway of his position. Not that it mattered now, though. The trail led him to last room, and a bloodied door handle was all the evidence he needed to assure himself that someone had survived. He listened for a moment but heard nothing. Nothing apart from the two other officers kicking doors in and checking rooms on their corridors. With this in mind, Ethan rounded the corner into the room, and what he saw shocked him.

Nothing.

There was nobody there.

Ethan lowered his weapon, still tense about the situation but, realising that he wasn't in any imminent danger, he relaxed his posture. On a second glance, there were a number of details that he hadn't originally noticed. It seemed to be a medical room, illustrated mainly by the med-kits on the wall, one of which had been removed from its stand and opened on the bed. A collection of different materials. He stepped over and was about to look through it when there was a quiet knocking, like something had hit against a metal surface. Gently gripping the SMG in his right hand, he switched his radio and the transmitter off, now enveloped in silence, and walked towards what he thought to be the source of the noise: the closet.

Taking the handle into his hand, Ethan paused for a couple of seconds. Then, without warning, he yanked the door open and something large and heavy tumbled out, knocking him off his feet, his SMG sliding away from him across the floor.

"D-Don't shoot! Please! I-I'll do anything just-just do-"

Confused would be an understatement, but regardless, Ethan rushed back onto his feet and closed a hand around the man's mouth, bringing his index finger up to his mask's mouthpiece. The stranger seemed to understand, and remained silent, though enable to reel back the terror in his eyes which were essentially doing the pleading for him now. He seemed to be of Hispanic heritage, with short black hair and a surprisingly neat moustache. Ethan recognized that the man was unarmed, but the crimson-stained bandage around his torso indicated that he wasn't really in fighting state anyway.

Slowly removing his hand from the civilian's mouth, Ethan unmasked himself. Kneeling, he set it over to the side and then ran a hand through his hair. It wasn't hard to notice the look the stranger gave him once he had taken his mask off, and it just confused him even more. After checking that no one was going to be interrupting them, he turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

"What were you expecting to see?" The young officer's voice was low, and he spoke quieter than usual. Whether that was out of fear of being heard by his unit or just downright bewilderment he didn't know.

There wasn't an answer.

"You can talk to me." His tone was more casual now, despite him being on edge a little.

"Oh, I uh...I-I dunno…just some, well, some sort of, uh…" The guy was speaking quickly, stuttering and stumbling over his words. It wasn't surprising, given the situation. Must have been a nervous wreck. He shifted backwards, leaning against a nearby wall before composing himself. "Look, it's just that…you were trying to kill us all! I didn't think that you'd be...y'know, fully human under there."

"Sorry to disappoint you." Ethan joked with a dead-pan tone and a slight smile on his face. Silence crept back into the room. "My name's Ethan."

"I-I'm Damian. Damian Griggs. Most people I know, they just call me Griggs." He grimaced and held his side, glancing down at his wound.

"You patched yourself up well, Griggs." Ethan nodded down at the bandage around his torso. He figured that Griggs must have known what he was doing given the situation he was thrown into.

"Th-Thanks! I was studying for a med degree before the Combine waltzed in. Still hurts like hell, though. I wasn't even meant to be here…" He trailed off quietly, shaking his head. "So, you're not gonna shoot me?"

"You're unarmed. And I already shot you once. Sorry."

"Hah! You really need to spend more time down at the range!" Ethan cocked his head slightly and raised an eyebrow in response. "I-I mean…you did really well to hit me from that range!"

"I'm not the best shot, I'll admit." Ethan chuckled, shrugging lightly, but after a few seconds his voice had become more serious and he locked eyes with Griggs. "But look, we don't have much time-" He cut himself off, throwing a look over his shoulder "- and I don't enjoy what I'm doing or what I've done, but we all have to make tough decisions to survive in this world." He breathed in deeply, as if building up the courage to go through with his next action. Silence hung over them. Finally, he unholstered his pistol and flipped it around to grip it by the barrel.

"W-What are you-"

"Take this and make sure you get out of here." Ethan interrupted Griggs by offering the weapon out to him, pistol grip first. Griggs didn't react. A bewildered expression had taken over.

"This, uh...this ain't a trick?" Giggs asked warily.

"If I wanted you dead then you'd be dead. You don't deserve that fate." Ethan replied bluntly.

"I…yeah, yeah…sorry. It's just that, usually you guys are kicking our assess or shipping us off to Nova Prospekt for so much as looking the wrong way, not giving out free guns. We're damn scared of you."

Ethan looked away and swallowed. That one hit home. He didn't want to imagine how many of Griggs' mates he had either directly or indirectly killed. Or worse.

"A lot of CPs abuse their power, Griggs, but some are just stuck in a shitty situation and have no choice. Some of them are good people." Ethan reached over and physically took Griggs' hand, placing the pistol grip in his palm. "I'm not one of them, but I like to think I haven't lost myself completely yet." He reluctantly let go of the weapon and handed Griggs an extra pistol magazine which he gladly accepted. "Stay in here until we're gone. Shoot anyone you need to shoot to get to safety."

"Okay, yeah, I'll do that. I'll be able to walk after I get some painkillers out of one of those med-kits. But how am I meant to know who you are if I see a few CPs and need to kill 'em? I don't wanna kill _you._"

"Then it's my own fault. I gave you that pistol after all. Just do what you have to. If you hesitate before making a decision then you're already dead." Ethan shot Griggs a soft smile and shrugged his shoulders, snatching his mask up from the floor next to him. "I know that if my own bloody arse is on the line, then I won't hesitate shooting you. I wish things were different."

"One day, maybe they will be. You're a good guy, Ethan."

Grimacing slightly, Ethan's gaze slumped to the floor.

"No. No I'm not." He muttered almost inaudibly.

Without uttering another word, the young officer replaced the mask over his face, hearing it click into place, and stepped outside with his SMG in hand again, closing the door. He didn't look back.


End file.
